Note: The Skinny blog is written by Rick Smith, editor and co-founder of WRAL Tech Wire and business editor of WRAL.com.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – Wall Street players and potential investors worldwide are frothing at the mouths about the prospects of an IPO by social media heavyweight Facebook. But don’t count a savvy RTP investor among them.
Scot Wingo, the founder and chief executive officer of ecommerce services provider ChannelAdvisor in Morrisville, is much more cool about a Facebook IPO than search engine giant Google’s move into the public markets.
Facebook’s IPO plans could be announced today.
“It’s really apples and oranges,” Wingo told The Skinny.
“Facebook’s revenues are lower than Google’s at time of IPO and age of company, but at the same time Facebook is having a bigger impact with their over 800 million user base.
“Google was very much a working business model you could measure and Facebook is more of a bet that they’ll be able to generate revenues from the 800 million users.
“I think with Facebook, personally, I’ll wait until after the IPO and let the price potentially come down a bit as it feels expensive.
“Google felt cheap at the time and that has proven out to be the case.”
Google went public in August 2004 at $85 a share and by 2007 was worth well over $600.
Wingo was giddy when he secured Google shares, and he likes to play in the market. (Readers can follow him as a blogger at SeekingAlpha.)
Will he come to regret the day that he passed on Facebook? We’ll see. People will chase Facebook shares as if they were a herd of lemmings. The smart creatures may very well be those who let stampede pass – and swoop in for a bargain buy later.
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